It’s Like You Never Left by Dave Mason (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: It’s Like You Never Left

Artist name: Dave Mason

Year: 1973

Number of discs: one

Label: Columbia Records

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: I think my father

Buy it on Amazon: $75.55

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I am not familiar with It’s Like You Never Left, but I did listen to a different Dave Mason record called Dave Mason Is Alive (1973) last summer, and thought it was ok.

What I expected

Rock.

What it was actually like

A lot of this record was pretty solid rock, with strong electric guitar and lots of guitar solos, with either subtle vocals or very 1970s processed-sounding vocals.

A good example of that style was Baby… Please. Others were Headkeeper, which I liked because it was much faster, and Side Tracked, which was not fast, but was an instrumental with multiple guitars, basically an extended electric guitar jam, and If You’ve Got Love, which had a bit of a country rock sound.

Other songs were more soft rock, with an acoustic sound such as Every Woman, which had a second vocalist in harmony, and The Lonely One, which had a really distracting harmonica. Maybe was also in this category, with layered guitars and good vocals that kind of reminded me of the Eagles.

Misty Morning Stranger had a lot of brass and more of a jazz style. I did not like it very much, though I did think it got better towards the end, with more of a rock sound.

Two songs were really difficult to describe. The first was Silent Partner, which I guess I would classify as progressive rock, but was kind of all over the place, and the other was the title track It’s Like You Never Left, which I guess I would say was a rock song with a lot of R&B and jazz.

Grade

4/5: would listen again